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Feb. 22, 1955 Filed June 11, 1952 o. F. ARTHUR 2,702,498

WIRE MAT 2 Shets-Sheet l v INVENTOR.

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Feb. 22, 1955 O.,F. ARTHUR Filed June 11, 1952 United States Patent -M-AT Oscar Arthur, Connellsuill'e, Pa.

Application June 11, 1952,!Seri'aLl Wo. 293,013

zenims. er. 94-13 My invention relates to mats, and more particularly to mats of wire mesh that are especially suited for use on snow, or on swampy or sandy ground, to thereby provide temporary landing fields for airplanes, truck tracks, beach aprons, hangar floors, and which may also serve as barrier fences, highway guards and bomb shelters.

One object of my invention is to provide a mat of the character referred to that although it is composed mainly of woven wire mesh for lightness, it provides an adequately-even landing surface for the wheels of airplanes or other vehicles, and will withstand the loads and thrusts imposed thereon by bomber planes for example, and which, although made largely of woven wire, has no protruding or snag ends that will damage pneumatic tires.

Another object of my invention is to provide a mat of the character referred to which can quickly be laid in sections of a size suitable for convenient handling, and the sections then connected to form a unitary complete mat structure which has great strength, although made of mesh wires of standard gauges, and which is not subject to any substantial degree of billowing or bulging though made largely of flexible elements.

Still another object of my invention is to provide a mat that comprises panels mainly of mesh wires or the line, which have plates or bars at their edges, with improved means for detachably connecting them together against accidental displacement, to form a multipanel mat, wherein the plates when interconnected can lie in a common plane and have no protruding connecting element at the meeting edges of the plates.

As shown in the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a fragmentary enlarged plan view showing the panels of Fig. 2 in assembled relation;

Fig. 2 is a perspective view showing a number of the mat panels in partly assembled relation;

Fig. 3 is a view taken on the line III-III of Fig. 1;

Fig. 4 is a view taken on the line IVIV of Fig. 1;

Fig. 5 is a bottom view, in perspective, showing the manner in which the mesh wires are connected to the longitudinally-extending plates;

Fig. 6 is an enlarged view taken on the tline VIVI of Figs. 1 and 7;

Fig. 7 is a plan view of the structure of Fig. 6, and

Fig. 8 is a fragmentary view showing the connecting elements of two adjacent panels in disassembled relation.

The mat is here shown as having a row or longitudinal series of panels A and a second row B, there being, of course, as many rows as may be needed to produce a mat of the desired width.

Each panel is composed of longitudinally-extending wires or rods 10 suitably of five gauge for heavy duty and transversely-extending wires 11 that may be eightgauge. The wires 10 are preferably straight and the transverse wires 11 arranged in basket weave formation therewith. At their ends, the transverse wires 11 have bends 12 formed therein that extend through slots in plates 13 at one edge of the panel and bends 14 that extend through slots in plate 15 at the other edge of "ice as to give. a smoother upper surface to the panel and avoid injury to tires as. would happen if some of. the wires were bent upwardlyand backwardly and some welds should become broken: and allow the jagged ends to protrude upwardly; To this end, some of the wires 10 extend over two transverse wires 11- at. one. end of the panel, as. indicated. at 18, and at the. other end, overlie only one wire 1'1. at.1'9, as shown in Fig. 1 The next adjacent. wires, 10- are reversel'y arranged in this respect, in. that they will. overlie. only one end wire- 11. in one instance and. two end wires. 111 .in the other instance, as shown at..20. and .21. sequence is followed. across the entire. width. of the panel.-

The panels of each row are arranged in groups that are hingedly connected by helical wires 22 which are turned into place to engage the endmost wires of adjacent panels, by a cork-screw action, thereby not only permitting these panels to flex to the contour of the ground, but also permitting folding thereof for convenient transportation. The extremities of the wires 22 are bent back and welded at 23, thus preventing unraveling and consequent ragged projections on the mat. Any suitable number of panels will be used in each of these sections, depending upon facilities for handling.

The panels of each section are somewhat permanently connected together by sleeves 24 that extend through slots in the ends of the plates 13 and 15 respectively, and are bent to shape and may also be welded at their seams.

The plates 13 have downwardly-bent flanges 27 with slots 27a therein for receiving lips 25 on the plates 15, that have tongues at their free edges for interlocking engagement with the slots.

in assembling the sections A and B in edge-to-edge relation, the panels of the sections will be slid towards one another so that the lips 25 and their tongues 26 can be pushed through the slots 27a and the panels then shifted slightly to engage the hooks 26 behind the flanges of the plates 13, at the ends of the slots.

When the tongues 26 have been slid into interlocking relation with the slotted plates 13, as shown in Figs. 6 and 7, lips 28 that are struck up or punched from the plates 13 are bent downwardly from full line position of Fig. 6 to the dotted line position therein, so that they will lie behind the lips 25 and thereby hold the sections A and B against accidental displacement. There are clear spaces 28a at the free ends of the lips 28 that will leave room for the insertion of a tool by which the tongue can be bent back to its full line position, if it is desired to disassemble the mats at longitudinal lines of division.

In order to connect the sections forming the mat strip A together and to likewise'connect together the sections forming the mat strip B, I provide slotted rings 29 at one end of each of the plates 13 and 15 and mating rings 30 at the other end of such plates, so that the rings can g terfilt with one another as shown near the middle of Also, spiral wires 32 and 33 are interengaged with the endmost wires of each panel section. These helical coils 32 and 33 are brought into partly overlapped or interfitting relation, so that they can be held connected by rods 34 that are slid through the coils and also through the knuckles 29 and 30 to connect the plates together.

The rods 34 have humps 35 near their bent ends as shown in Fig. 1, that will reduce danger of accidental displacement. The hooks 36 on one end of the rods can be used as handles for convenient manipulation thereof and also the hook on one rod can be used to pull other rods out when disassembling the panels. Also, the opposite ends of the rods can be of somewhat wedge shape to facilitate their use as tools, in bending the lips 28 from their dotted line position as shown in Fig. 6, to their full line or open positions.

I claim as my invention:

1. A field mat panel of the reticular type, comprising a sheet of reticulated material, end plates connected to opposite edges of the sheet, one of the plates having a free edge bent downwardly in an inclined plane and slotted, and the other plate having lips provided with longitudinally-extending tongues on their outer edges, the tongues being insertible into the slots of a plate on an ad acent sheet, the lips being of narrow width relative to the lengths of the slots, and the panels being relatively shiftable to efiect hooked engagement of their plates, and tongues integral with the slotted plate, in position to be bent into abutting engagement with those edges of certain of the lips which are remote from their tongues.

2. A field mat panel of the reticular type, comprising a sheet of recticulated material, end plates connected to opposite edges of the sheet, one of the plates having a free edge bent downwardly in an inclined plane and slotted, and the other plate having lips provided with longitudinally-extending tongues on their outer edges, the tongues being insertable into the slots of a plate on an adjacent sheet, the lips being of narrow width relative to the lengths of the slots, and the panels being relatively shiftable to efiect hooked engagement of their plates, and tongues integral with one of said plates, in position to be bent into certain of the slot areas, at points behind the lips when the panels have been shifted into hooked engagement.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,159,657 Dickinson Nov. 9, 1915 1,269,268 Ervin June 11, 1918 1,772,821 Weber Aug. 12, 1930 2,294,549 Greulich Sept. 1, 1942 2,315,180 Arthur Mar. 30, 1943 2,323,272 Barry June 29, 1943 2,338,785 Sommerfeld Jan. 11, 1944 2,361,163 Arthur Oct. 24, 1944 2,361,164 Arthur Oct. 24, 1944 2,599,634 Holmes June 10, 1952 2,645,167 Zeidler July 14, 1953 

